Every major social platform has its own preferred image dimensions, its own aspect ratio quirks, and its own way of cropping or scaling images that don't fit. Get the size wrong and your post looks unprofessional — text gets cut off, faces get cropped, the image goes blurry from being scaled up. Get it right and the platform shows your image exactly as you intended.
This guide is the 2026 reference for the five platforms that account for most social media activity: Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok. All dimensions are listed in pixels (width × height). Use them as exact target sizes when resizing.
Quick reference (all platforms)
If you only post one image type, here are the most common sizes by platform:
- Instagram square post: 1080×1080
- Instagram portrait post: 1080×1350 (recommended in 2026)
- Instagram Story / Reel: 1080×1920
- X post image: 1600×900 (16:9) or 1080×1080 (square)
- LinkedIn post image: 1200×627 (link share) or 1080×1350 (portrait)
- Facebook post image: 1200×630
- TikTok video thumbnail: 1080×1920
Posts (square, portrait, landscape)
- Square post: 1080×1080. Classic Instagram. Still works everywhere.
- Portrait post: 1080×1350 (4:5 aspect ratio). Takes up the most screen real estate in feed and is favoured by the 2026 algorithm.
- Landscape post: 1080×566 (1.91:1). Use for landscape photography or banners. Performs less well than portrait.
Stories and Reels
- Story: 1080×1920 (9:16, full vertical). Keep important content in the centre 1080×1420 to avoid being covered by UI elements.
- Reel cover: 1080×1920, but the visible thumbnail in feed is the centre 1080×1350 — design your cover with that crop in mind.
Profile picture
Upload at 320×320 minimum, 1080×1080 ideal. Instagram displays it as a circle in most contexts, so keep faces and logos centred.
X (formerly Twitter)
- Single in-post image: 1600×900 (16:9) or 1080×1080 (square). Both display cleanly in the feed.
- Multi-image post (2 images): 1200×675 each.
- Multi-image post (3–4 images): 1200×675 each, but the platform will crop variably depending on layout.
- Header image: 1500×500.
- Profile picture: 400×400 minimum, displayed as a circle.
- Link share preview: 1200×627. This is the image LinkedIn pulls from your og:image meta tag when someone shares your URL.
- Native post image (square): 1200×1200.
- Native post image (portrait): 1080×1350. LinkedIn's 2026 feed strongly favours portrait images.
- Background/cover image: 1584×396.
- Profile picture: 400×400 minimum, displayed as a circle.
- Company page logo: 300×300 minimum.
- Shared image post: 1200×630.
- Shared link preview: 1200×630 (set via og:image).
- Cover photo (Page or Profile): 851×315 desktop, 640×360 mobile. Design for the mobile crop.
- Profile picture: 320×320 minimum, displayed as a circle.
- Event cover: 1920×1005.
TikTok
TikTok is video-first, but a few image dimensions matter:
- Video / Photo Mode aspect ratio: 9:16, 1080×1920 native. Keep critical content in the centre 1080×1420 to avoid UI overlay.
- Profile picture: 200×200 minimum, displayed as a circle.
- Carousel (Photo Mode): 1080×1920 per image, up to 35 images.
Pro tips: avoid re-compression damage
Every social platform re-compresses uploaded images. You can't prevent that, but you can minimise the visible damage:
- Upload at the platform's exact recommended size. Uploading larger forces the platform to downscale (and re-compress harder); uploading smaller forces it to upscale (which looks blurry).
- Upload at the highest quality your tool allows. The platform will compress your image again — give it a clean source so the final result still looks good.
- Use PNG for images with text, screenshots, or graphics. JPEG re-compression is brutal on sharp edges; PNG sources survive better.
- Avoid posting screenshots of other social media posts. They've already been compressed once; recompressing them produces visible degradation.
- Strip EXIF metadata before uploading personal photos. GPS coordinates, camera info, and other metadata are often included by default and may be preserved by the platform.
When dimensions change
Social platforms update their preferred image sizes roughly once a year, sometimes more often. The dimensions in this guide are accurate as of April 2026 but will drift over time. The general principle that survives every update: portrait orientation outperforms landscape on mobile-first feeds (which is now most of them), and uploading at the platform's exact recommended dimension always beats trying to fit a 'one size fits all' image.
The bottom line
Different platforms, different sizes, all of them re-compressed on the way in. Resize your source to the exact target dimension before uploading, choose the right format for your content type (PNG for graphics, JPEG for photos), and upload at maximum quality. The whole process is about giving the platform the cleanest possible input so its mandatory re-compression doesn't ruin what you posted.